Humans and their Math
by Guibin
Summary: Ichigo and Rukia has a hollow free night but that doesn't mean they can relax. They still have homework!


**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.**

_A/N: I don't know how it came to me, it just did. I was cooking at the moment but I don't see how that could've inspired this story Haven't you ever wonder what happens when hollows don't appear? And we've never seen them do homework either so it makes me wonder if Rukia has to do it too since she is technically a student. I have a tendency to make characters go OOC so just a little warning. Anyways, my first IchiRuki fanfic! _

**Humans and their Math**

Kurosaki Ichigo sat in front of the wooden desk in his room doing homework. One of the rare times he actually has time for himself instead of patrolling the night for hollows and other shinigami work. For once, he felt like a normal high school student having only to worry about homework and other school things since the other town shinigami whose name he never remembered kept complaining about Ichigo stealing his work. So Ichigo told him he can take over night patrols. It was a welcomed break from his shinigami duties. It wasn't as if Ichigo would miss doing shinigami work but as of now, he was behind in his studies and he needs to catch up. He heard some grumbling coming from his right and he looked over.

Kuchiki Rukia, the petite female shinigami who was the start of everything, lay on his bed, on her stomach with a notebook and textbook in front of her.. Or trying to at least, she's been working on her Calculus assignment all night. It was funny to see her having to do homework since she didn't really have to do it anyways. It doesn't affect her future life anyway at all.

Ichigo turned back to his English assignment. He had finished his math homework first and was not worrying about it now. As he worked on translating the passages in the book, a frustrated Rukia screamed started beating her textbook with her fists.

"I don't understand any of this!" she yelled.

"You should stop complaining and just keep working on it then," Ichigo said not bothering to turn to look at her.

"You humans have made life so much more complicated! Why would we ever need to know any of this?" Rukia said angrily while sitting up.

"I don't know…college entrance exams?" Ichigo said. He couldn't think of any career where he would need so many maths either but this will bound to come in handy someday right?

Rukia scoffed and returned to her work. However, she kept grumbling and humming angrily.

Ichigo finished the last of his homework, a worksheet on the history of the Feudal Era of Japan and turned around. Rukia was still staring at the same page in the math book.

"Do you need help?" Ichigo offered.

"No," Rukia said flatly.

A vain twitched on Ichigo's forehead, "but you were just complaining about how hard it was."

"I can do this myself!" Rukia said.

"Fine!" Ichigo said exasperatedly and turned back to his desk.

What the hell, he nice enough to offer her help, and she obvious needs it but she flat out refused. Well girls are harder to understand then math damn it. Ichigo grabbed a random book sitting on his desk and began reading, slightly ticked off at Rukia's rejection of his offer. However, he couldn't concentrate on reading because Rukia continued grumbling and humming exasperatedly. Ichigo looked up at Rukia over his book…

"What? I don't need help!" Rukia yelled noticing his stare.

"I wasn't offering midget!" Ichigo yelled back.

"Well I wasn't asking!" she said turning back to the book. "And stop calling me strawberry!"

"Well get working midget." Ichigo yelled.

"Stop distracting me carrot-top." Rukia said.

It was 9 p.m. and Rukia haven't made any progress. Damn humans and their mathematics. She has no need for this as a shinigami! She shouldn't have to do this in the first place but she has to keep up the act of being human, and human teenagers do their homework (well some anyways). Also her pride as a Kuchiki wouldn't let her skip out on any work either so she now has to do it. But she doesn't understand any of this at all! What the hell are derivatives? Is that even a word?!?!

As Rukia lay frustrated over this mess of numbers and letters, she could see Ichigo's smirk from the corner of her eye. She would've accepted his help but a Kuchiki finishes their work with their own power. She wanted more time to see if she can do it after some long thinking. Well that long thinking turned into one and half hour. And if she asked now, Ichigo would hang this over her head for a long time, but she also has other work to do. She had hoped to finish these Calculus problems early so she can move on easier subjects. Save the easy ones for last right? Instead she spent the entire night on it. She's lucky she didn't have patrol duty tonight. That afro-shinigami gladly volunteered.

Rukia looked at the clock on Ichigo's desk again while sticking her tongue out at Ichigo. It was 10 p.m.! There was no way she can finish this and her other homework in time now. Ah what was she going to do? Just then, she felt the being pressed and a shadow loomed over her.

"Look, derivatives are pretty easy once you get the basic concept." Ichigo said sitting down next to her.

"What? I said I don't need your help idiot!" Rukia said trying to push him off the bed.

"Who's the idiot here who spent two and half hours looking at a piece of blank paper?" Ichigo said. "I don't want to hear your grumbling when I sleep while you try to finish this."

"Shut up strawberry…" Rukia said not being able to think of a good retort.

"So do you want my help or not?" Ichigo said exasperatedly.

"Just explain to me the basics…" Rukia said still not looking at him.

"Alright, the first one is pretty simple. The derivative of f(x) = x^2 is simply…f '(x) = 2x." Ichigo said pointing at the problem.

"I said explain to me how to do it, not tell me the answer!" Rukia yelled.

"But that is how you do it!" Ichigo said running his hand through his orange hair. "Do the next one then."

Rukia looked at the next problem, f(x) = x^3…judging from how Ichigo did it, it should be f '(x) = 3x.

"Wrong," Ichigo said watching her write the answer, "Don't you pay attention in class?"

"What? But that's you did here!" Rukia said pointing to the first problem.

"It's not just switching it around." Ichigo explained. "The derivative of f(x) = x^3 is actually f '(x) = 3x^2"

"Oh…" Rukia said lamely. "Well explain it better next time."

Rukia turned to the next problem, f(x) = x^4. According to Ichigo's vague instructions, the answer should be f '(x) = 4x^2.

"Wrong again," Ichigo said.

"What! I did exactly what you did there!" Rukia said frustrated.

"Look maybe you'll see a pattern after this one. The derivative of f(x) = x^4 is f '(x) = 4x^3." Ichigo explained, "See it yet?"

"Ohhhhh!" Rukia said as realization hit her, "idiot, why didn't you say so earlier!"

"Uggh…whatever, now finish it up." Ichigo said lying down next to her.

The problems only got harder as she progressed and she ended up having Ichigo teach her the whole way through. Those first few problems made it seem so easy…but it wasn't. With Ichigo's help and a few small arguments here and there, Rukia was able to finish her Calculus work by 11. They worked through the night to finish her other homework and before they even realized it, sleep overtook them.

Rukia was the first to wake up as she lifted her face off the English book's pages. She tried to get up but she was obstructed by something. She looked up and saw that Ichigo had wrapped his arms around her sometime during the night. He was also lying on top of Rukia's other books and papers. A small smile formed across her mouth at the gesture which turned into a small giggle. She slowly wiggled her way out from under and climbed over Ichigo to get out of bed. Ichigo turned over at that moment, his swinging arms smacking Rukia on the side, knocking her off balance so she fell to the floor with a loud thud.

This woke Ichigo up and she looked down at Rukia face flat on his bedroom floor.

"What are you doing on the floor, midget?" Ichigo asked yawning.

"You knocked me down!" Rukia yelled getting up.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ichigo said.

Meanwhile…downstairs Yuzu was preparing breakfast and Karin was reading the newspaper.

"Damn it…every morning. How annoying." Karin said putting down the papers.

"Ah…morning love! Masaki, our little Ichigo has grown so much!" Isshin yelled throwing himself at the poster of his wife on the wall.

"Guess I should call them down for breakfast or they'll be late." Yuzu said.

_A/N: They don't really have "Calculus" per se in Japanese schools, well they have it but it's just called math. Like Math I, Math II, and so on…something like that. The reason I said Calculus was to make the readers (you) understand that Ichigo is really smart despite his appearance. He actually studies as proven in the earlier episodes when the class rankings were posted up and Ichigo was ranked pretty high (much to Keigo's disappointment). Since Rukia has to be with Ichigo 24/7 she is naturally in all his classes. I myself only got up to Pre-Calculus in high school so I don't know much about Calculus…I am proof that not all Asians are good at math. In fact I got D- in Pre-Calculus to barely pass the class. My good grades in English and other classes made up for it. Don't you hate it when the first few problems or the beginnings of a chapter makes it sound so easy but then you later found out it's incredibly hard…yeah._

_Credit also goes to Khanaacademy of youtube for his Calculus videos. I got those few equations from his video. Now why would I be watching a video about calculus? It just popped up in my "recommended" box a while ago and I remembered it. _


End file.
